The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 15

by Gardner Dozois

  “Why do they have many mouths, instead of one?”

  He shrugged. “The life here relies on repetition; since this world is full of life, we can conclude that the strategy works.”

  “These aren’t the mats you want to study,” Lydia said.

  “Heavens, no! Though they’re interesting in their own right. The problem with all large animals is how to increase surface area. On Earth, and on many Earth-normal planets, the strategy has been to create inner surfaces: lungs, guts, and so on. We and our relatives are tubes. Nutrients go in one end. Waste comes out the other.” He paused.

  “The animals of this planet use another strategy. Rather than becoming tubes, they have become quilted sheets. The result is structural simplicity. But there is nothing simple about their chemistry. Even the ribbons produce a remarkable array of organic chemicals. Mind you, all life – true life, able to maintain itself and reproduce – is chemically complex. Do you have any idea of the number of enzymes a bacterium must use in order to repair its DNA?”

  “No,” said Lydia, afraid that the doctor was going to tell her.

  Instead, he leaned on the railing and looked down at the disks. A school of rust-brown ribbons had joined them, fluttering between and under. At most, the ribbons were two hundred centimeters long, but easy to see in the wonderfully transparent water. “The chemistry of these animals seems unusually complex to me; possibly because I don’t understand it. We haven’t had the time to study any world as thoroughly as we have studied Earth. As a result, much of our work is still taxonomy. We are merely listing the kinds of life we find and making guesses about how they are related. I intend to do more.”

  Lydia recorded the disks and ribbons, then excused herself and walked to the stern. For a while, she stood watching the waves, which were cresting gently, producing almost no foam. The sky was empty except for clouds, the giant, and Newtucket’s sun.

  Where this world’s land was not covered with ice, there was some vegetation: low red and brown plants, none of them with leaves. Many kinds of small ribbons lived in the soil like worms; a few animals had developed legs, one pair to each segment, and could walk atop the soil. But nothing in this world flew.

  She went inside finally, got out her computer and input comments on the world, not much as yet. It was early days. Then she wrote a letter to Wazati Casoon, the holo star’s twin brother, who was also his agent. She had developed a friendship with Cas. Since he was a eunuch, the hormones that so often confused Tloo’s mental processes did not trouble him. He was a clear-thinking, businesslike being, who kept her up-to-date on studio gossip. Every field worker needed an informant in the home office. It reduced the chances of an unpleasant surprise.

  That done, she went to dinner, which took place in a lounge overlooking the stern. The sun was going down as she walked in. Golden light slanted through the lounge’s windows. For a moment, she was dazzled, then she saw Dr. Johannesburg. He waved her to a table where he sat with Captain Bombay and a handsome brown woman with frizzy yellow hair, fastened with a clip at the back of her neck. Beyond the clip, the hair expanded into a wide, bristly tail that ought to belong to a comet. “This is Dr. Diop,” Dr. Johannesburg said. “She’s a taxonomist.”

  Dr. Diop smiled briefly. “Doubtless you have heard Dr. J’s opinion of taxonomy. He believes that life can be explained through reduction. To him, an animal is a bag of chemicals.”

  “On this world, yes,” Dr. Johannesburg said in a good-humored tone.

  Oh good, thought Lydia. A dinner table discussion of the comparative merits of taxonomy and biochemistry!

  But the captain asked, “How do you like K’r’x?”

  “An amazing being.”

  “He’s complaining about you already,” Dr. Diop said. “You are ignoring him. He wants conversation. He wants to eat and be eaten.”

  “It’s not an easy experience,” Lydia said.

  “We have to keep him happy,” said Dr. Diop. “He collects specimens for me, and Dr. Johannesburg is planning to use him to study the mats.”

  Dr. Johannesburg said, “We are planning to have him swim under the mats and record their ventral surfaces; external structures – if any – should be there, and he will take tissue samples. We know nothing about these creatures except for satellite pictures, which show them migrating slowly north and south in ocean currents. If they die, the remains do not wash to shore. The local human colony has been instructed to avoid the mats, until we can study them.”

  “Of course, humans don’t always obey rules,” said Dr. Diop. “But we haven’t heard about any encounters.”

  “The locals say the mats are dangerous,” Captain Bombay put in. “They know we’re killing their relatives, the ribbons, and they don’t like it.”

  Dr. Johannesburg frowned “Where did you learn this?”

  “Where you learn everything in a harbor town. The bars.”

  Dr. Johannesburg waved a hand in dismissal. “Humans have always made up stories about monsters in deep water.”

  “Dangerous how?” asked Dr. Diop.

  “The stories vary. But one crew woman told me – granted, she was not entirely sober – that she knew of two boats that never came home after going into the regions where mats are found. One sent a final radio message, something about its engines failing, and then, ‘Oh my God, the mat!’ ” Bombay spoke thrillingly, like an actor in a bad holoplay.

  “Ridiculous!” said Dr. Johannesburg.

  “You’re almost certainly right,” the captain said. “The boats were fishing trawlers that vanished in bad weather. The Persistent is a far more powerful ship, and we have state-of-the-art instrumentation. I expect no trouble.”

  “I can’t imagine how a mat could sink a boat of any size,” Johannesburg added. “Even a dory. Given their structure, or lack of structure, there is no way they can raise themselves from the water. This is simply another monster-in-the-ocean story.”

  Dr. Diop glanced at Lydia. “Tell K’r’x to be careful.”

  “Okay.”

  The next morning, feeling guilty, Lydia put on the radio headset. There was the usual brief interlude in the crystalline world of AI operating systems. Then she was moving through blue, sunlit water. Transparent creatures like quilted bells pulsed around her.

  Back, said K’r’x. I missed you. I never realized – till now – how lonely I have been among the stars. Divers are social.

  A fingered tentacle reached out and grasped one of the bells. Lydia could feel the creature’s slippery texture and its struggle to escape.

  There is no internal structure, said K’r’x. Do you see and feel that? I’m learning to be a scientist, like the humans on your ship. The fingers released the bell. It pulsed away, its motion erratic and its shape lopsided.

  Are you sure you understand human science? Lydia asked.

  It is to seize and crush or tear, K’r’x said. Easy for me to understand, since I’m a predator.

  That is one kind of science, but not the only kind, Lydia said.

  What else is there? K’r’x asked as he dove. They were far out now; he did not reach the bottom, but swam among a school of ribbons. She had lost her sense of size, confused by K’r’x ideas of big and little, but she thought that these ribbons were considerably longer than any she had seen before. They were pale, and edged with narrow bands of fringe, which fluttered as the ribbons undulated. Gills? Tentacles? Sensory organs? Decoration?

  There is watching, Lydia said.

  I will think about that, said K’r’x.

  She stayed with him for some time. He was quieter than before, less exuberant. Lydia could enjoy the strong rhythm of his muscles as he swam, the rush of cold water through his gills; the alien flavors on his tongue, and the animals around them: ribbons of many sizes, bells, and, once, a sphere, perfectly transparent, with a ribbon inside it. Was the sphere a predator? Or the ribbon a parasite? Or was she looking at symbiosis?

  Finally a new voice said, Lunch time.

 
What? asked Lydia.

  That is my AI, K’r’x said. It’s repeating a radio message in a form that you and I can understand. He beat his broad fins, driving both of them toward light. You are to go back and eat a delicious human lunch, while I must satisfy myself with dead fish. Do you have any idea how unpleasant it is to eat food that isn’t thrashing?

  No, Lydia said. I almost never eat food that moves.

  Hard to believe or understand.

  A moment later, she was in her cabin, the headset in her hand. Her head ached slightly, and she felt disoriented. The ship moved, but she no longer did. The air in her lungs felt wrong. She breathed in and out a few times, until it seemed like a natural action. Then she took a shower, put on new clothes, and went to lunch.

  This time, Dr. Johannesburg waved her to a table with him, Dr. Diop, and Too Ziri. Lydia filled a plate at the buffet, then joined them. The humans all had salads, products of the greenhouses around Newtucket Town. Ziri had something that looked like a piece of flat bread covered with fish eggs.

  “K’r’x is complaining about his food,” Lydia said. “It’s dead.”

  “We can’t bring enough live fish to feed him,” Dr. Diop said. “The ship live wells aren’t large enough, and we need them for our specimens.”

  “I understand the problem,” put in Ziri. “My food must be shipped from off-world. I long for something fresh. But science requires sacrifice.”

  Looking at Dr. Johannesburg wolfing down his salad, Lydia wasn’t sure. He didn’t have the appearance of someone who had sacrificed much in his life.

  She ate lightly, feeling unsettled by her visit with K’r’x.

  “What happened?” Dr. Diop asked.

  Lydia described the bells, the fringed ribbons, the transparent sphere.

  Dr. Diop rose. “I’m going to ask K’r’x to gather samples. As far as I know, the sphere is entirely new, and I think the ribbons in this region may be new as well. When these creatures wash ashore or are lifted out of the water by a net or trap, they lose their shape. Whatever structure they may have collapses, and we are left with a flat gelatinous mass, which is often damaged or incomplete. How do we know what we have?”

  She left the table. Lydia took her plate to recycling, then went on deck carrying a cup of tea. Clouds were coming from the west, mid-level and puffy. They cast their shadows on the gently rolling ocean. Lydia drank her tea, which was hot and sweet, and watched the water. A disk floated, rising and falling. It was at least two meters across and dull orange-brown. Like the yellow disks, it had radiating grooves.

  She knew she didn’t have the kind of mind that made a scientist. Instead, she was like K’r’x, a predator who came into situations and grabbed whatever seemed interesting or usable. But there was something tempting about the idea of spending one’s life studying something closely. As a child, she had wanted to be a paleontologist, a very pure form of science on her home world, since none of the fossils there had anything to do with human evolution. Later, she had studied history; a far less pure form of science. Then she had become a revolutionary, and then a prisoner. At that point, she had gone back to reading about evolution. It was more restful than history, given her situation at the time. Finally, the AIs came to her with an offer she could not refuse: if she would take an observer into her nervous system, they would arrange her release from prison.

  Thus we came together, said the AI inside her skull with a tone of satisfaction.

  How do you like K’r’x? Lydia asked.

  I prefer you. He’s too forceful, and I don’t think his AI is doing a good job with him.

  Is it supposed to do a job? Lydia asked. Aren’t AIs supposed to observe and not interfere?

  Yes. Her AI fell silent.

  The disk in the water was joined by ribbons. They were the same shade of orange. Lydia went to find Dr. Diop. She was in the ship’s comm room.

  Glancing at Lydia, she said, “We are lowering plastic containers, large enough to hold specimens and enough water to – I hope – keep them alive and undamaged.”

  “Tell K’r’x to be gentle,” Lydia said. “I saw him damage a bell this morning.”

  “I’ve already told him. It’s a problem.”

  “How many animals on this world are predators?” Lydia asked.

  “Aside from K’r’x? Many, but almost all prey on microorganisms. I do not entirely agree with Dr. Johannesburg about structure, but there’s no question that the animals here lack teeth, beaks, mandibles, claws, and anything else that might be used for seizing and cutting. They also lack jaws and digestive systems capable of handling anything large. Why do you ask?”

  “I was wondering if some of them are predators, symbiotes, or maybe different forms of the same organism. I’ve seen disks – coasters – twice now. Each time there were ribbons around them.”

  Dr. Diop smiled. “Both ideas have occurred to us. But we lack data. There is one team of genetic engineers on this world, and they’re in the fish fjord, trying to create a fish that can live in Newtucket’s oceans and be eaten by humans. They’ve learned a fair amount about ribbons, since ribbons are the fish food of choice. But they don’t have time for the rest of the biosphere. I do what I can with taxonomy; it isn’t enough; I am only one person.”

  They went on deck. The ship was plowing through a school of dull orange disks. As far as the eye could see, they dotted the ocean. Looking down, Lydia saw the that water was full of orange ribbons.

  “Do we know what this means?” Dr. Diop said, gesturing out. “No. Though Dr. Johannesburg is right in saying that all these animals are chemical factories. Many of the chemicals are excreted into the ocean. What are they for? Defense, we suspect, and possibly predation. The local fisher people find ribbons floating dead in the water, with little disks stuck all over them. Dr. Johannesburg suspects that the disks produce a poison, which they use to kill the ribbons. Then they attach themselves to their prey and dissolve it.” She frowned.

  “Some of the chemicals may be a form of communication. I believe so. Maybe these disks have called the ribbons to them. Why? I don’t know.”

  “There’s a lot that isn’t known about life here,” Lydia said.

  Dr. Diop nodded. “Humanity has settled on tens of worlds and is exploring hundreds more. Scientists are behind everywhere.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of something bad happening?”

  “Oh yes. It has already and will again. But there’s no way to stop this expansion, unless the AIs refuse to let people use their star gates, and they haven’t.”

  This is correct, her AI said.

  “Humans spent too much time on Earth while it was dying. They aren’t going to sit on another overcrowded planet, waiting for scientists to make decisions. So they go out and settle, and we hurry along behind, trying to figure out what the species has gotten itself into this time.” She sighed.

  “Some colonies are prudent. Others are not. Some worlds are more dangerous than others. The people of this world are not foolish, but the colony here is small and short of money, and the colonists are determined to make it work. That means practical science, rather than pure research. Our grant is from off-world. We’ll do what we can with the money we have, then leave.

  “We have just received new images from the satellite above us. The mats are drifting farther west than usual, and one of them is well outside their range. We’ve issued a warning to trawlers. We should reach the mat in question in less than two days.”

  Dr. Diop left. Lydia looked at the ocean, dotted with disks and the shadows of clouds. Why do you let humans through your star gates? she asked the AI.

  If we do not let your kind disperse, there will be another disaster like Earth. We don’t give human colonists access to worlds with intelligent life; as for other worlds – the universe is full of life, and for the most part it’s resilient. It isn’t small invasions that destroy a biosystem, but rather massive insults.

  Some colonies will be destroyed. Some will learn to live in t
heir new environment. In a few cases, the colonies will manage to do permanent harm to their new home world. Change is inevitable, as you ought to know from your study of evolution.

  What if humans over-reproduce? Lydia asked.

  As you did on Earth? It doesn’t seem likely to us that every colony will be so foolish. If some are – well, we rescued you from yourselves once. We need not do it again.

  What would you do? Lydia asked, feeling a morbid interest. Shut down the colony’s star gate?

  Most likely, yes.

  And leave the colony to die, since FTL was an AI secret, Lydia concluded.

  Her AI said nothing.

  The sky darkened. The giant appeared, its crescent wider than before. Obviously, it was waxing. Two moons accompanied it; both had visible disks. Leaning on the ship’s rail, Lydia put on her headset. For a moment, she felt K’r’x inside her, looking out her eyes. You are so small and vulnerable! Your vision is so poor! And this scene lacks interest. Come to me. Be strong! And in the midst of beauty!

  A moment later, she was inside him, looking out his eyes as he swam well below the surface. Transparent, quilted bells shone blue-green in the blackness; ribbons were gold or silver. Schools of tiny animals, too small to have visible shapes, were like red-shifted galaxies.

  I told you I’m lonely, K’r’x said. The sensation grows. I want kinfolk to swim with; women for mating; tiny, adorable Diver children to care for, vigorously thrashing, crunchy armored fish to eat.

  Can you go home? Lydia asked.

  My AI says yes. But it will be expensive. I have the money. I am paid for my work, and my only expense is fish.

  Well, then, said Lydia.

  If I go home, I will miss the stars and you, Lydia. No one has ever spoken to me so closely. You are inside me, like an egg in a Diver woman, and I am in you, like a glob of sperm that has been deposited.

  What a gift for language the Diver had!